In the spring of 1986, a Washington Post reporter catalogued the players on Duke's roster who came from the DC metropolitan area. There were six of them — enough that the headline read "Washington's '86 Team: Duke." Johnny Dawkins from Mackin High. Tommy Amaker from W.T. Woodson. Billy King from Park View. Danny Ferry from DeMatha. And two freshmen the article identified as future contributors: John Smith from Friendly High and George Burgin, a 7-foot-2 center, from W.T. Woodson — Amaker's high school teammate.
George Burgin was born on May 4, 1967, and grew up in Fairfax, Virginia, in the heart of the basketball-rich Northern Virginia and DC corridor that Coach K would mine for talent throughout the 1980s. At W.T. Woodson High School, he played alongside Amaker, who was a year ahead of him and had already committed to Duke. The pipeline was simple: Krzyzewski's wife had lived in Alexandria, he recognized the DC area's year-round organized basketball culture — AAU, summer leagues, the elite Catholic League — and once Dawkins committed in 1982, every recruit who followed made it easier to land the next one. "Once we got Johnny, and if we could show we would develop him, then we might be able to get some others," Krzyzewski told the Post. Burgin was one of those others — a seven-footer from Amaker's own school who followed the trail his teammate had blazed to Durham.